University of Minnesota Fails Miserably in Child Welfare

The Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare has been created at the University of Minnesota School of Social Work.

Let us take a moment of silence to realize that the industry of Medicaid Fraud in Child Welfare is encouraged through the promotion of pseudo-empirical research by educators who are breathtakingly deficient in the disciplines of ethics and policy.

Taken from the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare (CASCW) is the objective for its learning modules.

CASCW's learning modules are developed by affiliated faculty within the School of Social Work. Child welfare-relevant evaluation findings, which include current policies and practices affecting Title IV-E eligible families and children, are incorporated into these supplemental training materials.

Now, at this point, many are wondering what is wrong with the research and evaluation findings that have led to the development of these learning modules used in child welfare training, so let's look at what is not present.

Definition of parental rights: I wrote extensively on the subject of parental rights, complete with identified model, definition and usages. The University of Minnesota Center for the Advancement of Studies in Child Welfare, therefore, has no authority in child welfare as it has not properly demonstrated the skills, knowledge and abilities to execute research nor the credibility to implement policy.

Accountability: There is nor has there ever been any mention of contractual disbarment, license revocation, fines, sanctions, well, anything dealing with federal funding criteria has been avoided like the plague and here is the reason why:

The Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare (CASCW) was established in 1992 with federal Title IV-E funding and a grant from the Bush Foundation. The Center brings the University of Minnesota together with county and state social services in a partnership dedicated to improving the lives of children and families.

That's right, Social Security Title IV-E funding. Many do not know that Title IV-E funds training for child welfare agencies through education. Here's how the scheme works.

A state will receive funding through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families to provide training to all federally funded Child Welfare programs.

In most states a person must be licensed as a social worker to work in child welfare. Some states partner with manoeuvrers, such as the University of Minnesota's Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare, who receive state funding grants like demonstration grants and traditional university funding, to design programs and initiatives to support the state's revenue-maximization schemes in child welfare.

The university will design curriculum and theory to enhance the current state administrative policies and practices. In some states, such as New York, the state canceled all private training to redirect all activities to Cornell. When this happens, a question of ethical practices occurs. In the New York situation, Cornell has designed a subsidiary structure where a child welfare worker may go to receive the necessary training for licensing.

The problem is there is no competition, hence, they can instruct workers to do whatever they wish.

Another problem is with fraud. There are double-billing, treble-billing, phantom billing, kiddy kickbacks, phantom organizations, phantom employees, phantom programs and the state will do nothing to stop it. Most of the fraudulent billing activity remains in the state coffers to be re-allocated to cover the state's percentage of state-federal funding formula percentage.

Here is an easier way of looking at the funding situation:

Taxes => Feds => States => Universities => States => Child Welfare Policy

You pay federal taxes. That money then goes as SSA Ttle IV-E grants to States. States fund universities to train and create policy. False claims are generated and the money goes to pay it's portion of the funding. This is a maximization of revenue that is then put into more child welfare programming to continue generating funds to create more activities.

In Michigan, the training is all in-house, or rather in the Judicial Branch under the State Court Administrative Offices. What this brilliant state did was to manoeuvre around titles and create the legislative term of "case managers". One no longer needed to be a social worker to work in child welfare, meaning a G.E.D. was the minimum requirement. Even if a social worker was licensed, there is no regulatory state entity to file grievances in child welfare, meaning the state is not appropriately using its ADA grievance funding nor is it properly using it Attorney General consumer protection funding.

Then the training, in the Child Welfare Institute, is conducted by young, community college students, as most of the seasoned uneducated staff left. Much of the training sessions consist of internet cut and paste that has nothing relevant to do with the state.

The worst parts with the Michigan training model are that it relies upon whatever it fabricates and private child placing agencies are not mandated to send their child welfare "case managers" to any kind of training. This way, more of the double-billing, treble-billing, phantom billing, kiddy kickbacks, phantom organizations, phantom employees, and phantom programs continue to thrive in the never ending supply-chain of families falling into poverty.

Transparency: There is not one single reference to public education on administrative operations, fiscal reporting, internal audits, external audits, grievances, ethics or anything else in the realm of organizational integrity, but this is understandable because the University of Minnesota CASCW knows nothing about this area of study. In fact, it encourages unethical behavior in all its programming.

Again, I have examined in depth the barriers to transparency in child welfare, so I am in a position of authority, along with the U.S. DHHS OIG and U.S. DOJ, to state that fraud, in its various shapes and forms, will continue to flourish in the unethical academic environments.

I make the assertion that all research hailing from the University of Minnesota CASCW is suspect as it fails to identify its biases and limitations in constructing a valid definition of parental rights and fails to identify its inherent conflict of interests with SSA Title IV-E funding, and neglects to raise the issues of fraud in child welfare.

My overall grade for the work of University of Minnesota CASCW is F.